Copper monk statue vanishes from Oakville cemetery

A meter high bronze statue of a Buddhist monk atop a unicorn has been stolen from an Oakville cemetery, reported Halton Regional Police on Wednesday morning.The statue is imported from China and originally overlooked a family plot of a local Chinese-Canadian family at Oakville’s Glen Oaks Memorial Gardens. “For the past ten years, the first thing I saw when I got out of my car at the cemetery was that statue,” said a representative of the family who did not wish to be named. “Last week, it wasn’t there.”The statue was stolen between May 24 and 31, but the family decided not to report the incident to police until recently.The figure is a “gatekeeper” meant to assure the passage of the dead into heaven. According to Chinese tradition, the statue will impart bad luck on whoever removed it from its perch. “Whoever stole this, please return it if you want to,” said the family representative. “If they’ve sold it or melted it already, I wish them luck for the rest of their lives.”

The theft comes amid a ongoing wave of copper thefts in the Greater Toronto area. On Tuesday, the Halton Police reported that they had arrested a man in connection with more than $200,000 in copper thefts from Hydro One stations. “It’s an ongoing thing with abandoned homes and things of that nature,” said Sgt. Dave Cross, spokesperson with the Halton Police.

Cemeteries are particularly vulnerable to metal theft, since they are often isolated, lightly guarded and rife with easy-to-steal plaques, vases and statues.

In 2009, Toronto-area police arrested three men for stealing more than 600 bronze nameplates from Vaughan and Markham cemeteries. Two years before, police arrested a 77-year-old man accused of stealing more than 800 bronze vases from a Toronto cemetery. In both cases, police were able to recover much of the stolen metal before it made its way to the smelter.